​Annual Charter Evaluation (ACE)

Dear Charter Leaders,

The Charter Schools Office is excited to release 2017 Annual Charter Evaluations (ACEs), now in their third year, for brick and mortar charter schools in Philadelphia. The ACE aligns with the Charter Schools Office's updated charter school performance framework and includes school specific performance indicators in the domains of academic success, organizational compliance and viability, and financial health and sustainability. Each year, the ACE provides detailed, actionable information about charter school performance and can serve as a guide or "road map" to school improvements prior to a comprehensive renewal evaluation in the last year of the charter term.

Attached please find your school specific ACE(s), which will be uploaded to the Charter Schools Office website here this afternoon. An ACE has been produced for every charter school operating in both 2016-17 and 2017-18 that will not receive a Renewal Recommendation Report in 2017-18.

The ACE presents charter school performance in the three aforementioned domains. For academic success, the ACEdetails student proficiency, academic growth, attendance, and, for high schools, post-secondary readiness outcomes. Proficiency, attendance, and post-secondary readiness outcomes are further reported by student subgroups and/or by grade. For organizational compliance and viability, the ACE provides charter school specific performance information compared to standards for both compliance and best practices in the areas of special education, English Learners, enrollment, student discipline, personnel, food, health, and safety, board governance, and timely reporting. For financial health and sustainability, the ACE reports each school's financial health compared to standards for three short and four long-term financial metrics and outcomes related to audit findings, debt delinquency and default, and PSERS. A final equity section reports information related to student and teacher retention, school climate, and student and parent surveys.

This year, we have modified the ACE to be in full alignment with the updated charter school performance framework. Each ACE contains information on a school's Similar Schools Group(s) and how the school performed in comparison to the Similar Schools Group and District Schools during the 2016-17 school year. Additionally, we have updated the Executive Summary section, which presents a three year overview of a charter school's performance across the three domains in the charter school performance framework, to include clearer information on how a school is trending in academic success and whether the school is on a path to renewal. Specifically, schools will be able to see how they are earning points in the academic section that go towards determining the school's Academic Success Domain rating. Further information on how points are assigned can be found in the charter school performance framework here.

The CSO wants to thank you and your school teams for the time and effort you put forth to provide feedback on the ACElast year; much of that feedback was incorporated into the updated charter school performance framework, 2017 ACE, and forthcoming 2017-18 Renewal Recommendation Reports. We also want to recognize the effort and time of all our charter schools in the timely submission of annual charter information and in the thoughtful questions and prompt responses to theACE preview window.

Later this month, we will publish a user guide for stakeholders that explains in more detail each indicator and source data for various components of the ACE. Over the coming weeks, the Charter Schools Office will also release a 2018 Charter Sector Analysis based on specific focal areas from the 2017 ACE and 2017-18 Renewal Recommendation Reports. We look forward to presenting sector summary information to further our mission to support autonomy, foster equity, and ensure accountability for all charter schools in Philadelphia. Once again this year, the CSO will host a convening to present these results, foster sector sharing of best practices, and collect additional feedback from you regarding the ACE.

The achievements of the charter sector are to be commended. The ACE will continue to identify those areas where we can yet improve to support all Philadelphia children in having a great public school option regardless of their neighborhood or zip code.

Thank you for your work on behalf of the school children of Philadelphia.